Of Rats and Drainpipes
by Loki Mischeif-Maker
Summary: Dear Peter has got himself stuck, as a rat, in the drainpipe of a sink. . . . Strange things result from the other Marauders' attempts to get him out.


**Disclaimer:** _Alas, I cannot claim the Marauders (or Hogwarts, for that matter). They're Rowling's characters, and I've only borrowed them for a time. I promise I'll return them and won't hurt them permanently._

"Moony?"

Remus Lupin looked up, finding himself staring into the bemused grey eyes of Sirius Black. The bigger teen looked half worried and half amused about something, a combination which generally didn't bode particularly well. "What did you _do_, Padfoot?" Remus demanded, closing his Transfiguration book. "Where're Prongs and Wormtail?" he added, figuring that might be part of the key.

Sirius bit his lip for a moment— whether he didn't want to answer or was biting back a grin was debatable. "Um . . . James is in the bathroom on the third floor. He's . . . trying to get Peter out of the drain."

Remus sighed. "What did you _do_, Sirius?" he repeated.

"Absolutely nothing!" the dark haired teen announced defensively. "Well _we_ didn't do anything. The Slytherin quidditch captain missed Peter with a hex, and he transformed and hid." He shook his head ruefully. "I told Parker ole Wormtail was faster than he looked and Prongs went after him. We have _no_ idea how he managed to get that far down the sink.

"He's hardly a small rat," Remus agreed tactfully.

"And to top it all off, I would've thought he was too fat," Sirius agreed tact_less_ly. "Well, you're the sensible one and Peter's stuck," he added, running distracted fingers through his disheveled black hair. "We can't get him out of there without some help, at any rate."

The sandy haired boy nodded, placing the book on a nearby table. "I'm coming, Padfoot," he muttered, standing up. "You have all gone _insane_."

"We were ever sane?" Sirius quipped with a grin as he pushed the fat lady's portrait open and climbed into the corridor.

"Point."

Remus followed his friend downstairs. They found James Potter talking to the sink in the boys bathroom on the third floor. Remus began to wonder if this was a joke. He joined James by the sink and looked down into the drain. "Are you _really_ in there, Peter, or are you three pulling my leg?"

There came an answering squeak from the depths of the drain. Squinting, Remus caught sight of a bald tail protruding from near the bend in the piping. "How on _earth_ did you get down _there_?" he demanded.

Once again, Peter only squeaked in reply.

"How _did_ he get down in there?" Sirius asked contemplatively. "I mean, he's fatter than that drainpipe normally, even as a rat. . . ."

The previously desolate squeaking quickly became enraged. James glanced down the piping, smiling wryly. "If he has a heart attack down there, Padfoot, we won't be able to help him," he pointed out.

"As to how, I think rodents' spines stretch," Remus explained. "That's how those pets get through all that tubing."

"Moony the Textbook," Sirius and James muttered simultaneously. "How do you remember this stuff?" Sirius added, half to himself.

Remus shrugged. "One of us go tell a teacher our rat crawled down the sink," he suggested. "I can't think of another way to get him out."

"I'd suggest Flitwick, Moony," James replied. "Filch would throw a fit and McGonagall knows you don't actually have a rat."

Remus rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and turned back to the sink. "Have you tried backing slowly out?" he asked the bald tail. In reply, Peter's scratching resounded from the piping, but nothing else happened. Peter was still undoubtably stuck in the tube.

The other three teenagers glanced at each other. Sirius glanced back down the drainpipe contemplatively. "Maybe if he _Scurgio_-ed his fur, the soap'd make him slippery enough to get out," he suggested to the other two.

Remus shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

James grinned in reply to that. "And at any rate, he's gonna need a wash when we get him out of that pipe anyway. You hear that, Wormtail? We're going to try covering you in soap."

Sirius stuck his wand down the drain as far as it would go and cast the spell. Peter squeaked in utmost alarm as it hit him, and started scratching at the sides wildly. No more of his tail and none of his now sud-covered fur made its appearance in the piping, however.

The other three Marauders stood back when he stopped struggling, glaring at the pipes. "Well," James announced, adjusting his glasses, "we know what _not_ to do with Peter."

"Yeah. . . ." Remus agreed.

A few moments later, James came up with another suggestion. "Maybe we could levitate him out of there. I mean, I doubt there's enough room for him actually to fly, but it might help a little."

Remus knelt under the sink and tapped where he assumed the rat to be. "We're going to try levitating you, okay, Peter?" he asked. The squeaks emerging didn't seem too urgent in reply, so he glanced at the other two boys. "Sirius, look down and tell me what happens."

Sirius positioned himself above the drain and Remus turned back to the piping. "_Wingardium Leviosa_."

"Well, his tail's lifted," Sirius announced.

"Okay, that works. C'mon," Remus growled, shifting his wand towards the upper part of the drainpipe. "Just work. Get him out of there. He's scared."

"Nothing's happening," Sirius announced. "Guess that rat's too fat."

The squeaking emerged again, and the other three boys sighed. "If it's Sirius's remarks, stop," Remus told him. "If I'm hurting you, keep it up."

The squeaking didn't die, so Remus cut the spell off short and turned to the other two boys. "Any other good ideas?" he asked.

"Um. . . ." Sirius didn't answer.

James knelt by Remus and fingered the piping. "If only we could move it," he muttered, wrapping his hands around it. It was rusty and melded together.

"Well, even if we could I'd be afraid of breaking his neck or his back," Remus answered. "How _do_ we get that rat _out_?" he muttered.

"_Engorio_?" James suggested.

"We couldn't, it'd crack the piping," Remus pointed out. "The walls won't let it expand."

"Maybe we could flush him into the lake," Sirius suggested. "Rats can swim after all, can't they? Then he'd be out. Wet, yes, but out."

"He can't hold his breath that long," Remus reminded the dark haired boy.

All three of them returned to staring at the pipe, which emitted an occasional squeak from Peter. "Eventually we're going to be late for supper if we don't figure this out," Sirius commented. Peter squealed and struggled against the piping.

"Oh, hush," James told him irritably. "If you didn't eat so much, you wouldn't be so fat, and we wouldn't be having this problem right now."

Remus was staring down the drain again, looking at Peter tail as it quivered with indignance. "Well, we can't flush him out, we can't lubricate him so he can slide out, we can't levitate him, and we can't enlarge the pipes. We haven't tried shrinking him to mouse-size, though."

"That'll work!" Sirius exclaimed.

"It better," James muttered, glancing at the pipe. "Else we may have to get a teacher, and I don't want to have to explain all of this. . . ."

"Well, it would be a bit of a tedium, but I don't see what other choice we'd end up having," Remus muttered. "Peter," he added louder, "we're going to shrink you so you can climb back out. Then we'll get you back to normal size again, okay?"

Peter squeaked again in what sounded like consent. "Okay," Remus muttered, casting the spell and watching his tail shrink inwards. More scratching emerged from the pipe, and the rat, which now looked like a mouse, crawled out without difficulty. Peter's grey fur was covered with soap-suds and grime, and his whiskers drooped. His bright black eyes were alight with an unusual combination of gratitude and fury.

"_Engorgio_," Remus muttered, returning the rat to his usual size.

Peter leapt from the sink, landed on the floor, and took his usual form as a mousy haired teenager. "What took you so long?" he demanded.

"Trying to figure out the practical bits," Remus admitted honestly. "We weren't sure _how_ to get you out. How did you get in there, anyway?" he added, glancing back down the sink, wondering what had possessed even a frightened rat to get down in that grimy depth.

"Those sinks are slippery," Peter grumbled defensively. "Besides, once I had half my body in it looked like a god place to hide. No one would look there."

"I wonder why," James said dryly. "You need to clean yourself up, Wormtail. You look a mess."

"We thought you were too fat to get down there, let alone back up," Sirius commented mildly, at the cost of another great yelp of protest from Peter.

The other three playfully pushed "Padfoot" out of the bathroom on their way out of it. This particular incident was definitely one for Marauder legend— a rat in a sink, and an hour's plotting to get him back out again.

**Author's Note:** There aren't enough Marauder's fics in which Peter plays a prominent role. There just aren't, and nothing can convince me of the fact. He _was_ a Marauder, and more people need to figure that out. Obviously, "Of Rats and Drainpipes" couldn't exist without dear Peter. This is one of the things that brought this on, and the other is the Lupin angst fics. I loathe ninety-nine percent of them, having seen around two I think I could stand. So I had to do something _light_ with the foursome. Fluffy, I know, but tell me what you think! Cheers! — Loki Mischief-Maker


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